Clear Your Name
by Oranakka
Summary: OS. Slightly AU. What if Aaron had known about the investigation and worked with Emily to clear his name? Set during 1x10.


Hello there! It's been a while I haven't published anything Designated Survivor related, but a conversation on Twitter gave me the ideas and the will to start again. Thank you girls, you know who you are ;)

I think the title is pretty self-explanatory, so I hope you'll like it! Feel free to review, follow, favorite!

* * *

"Emily, I found a list in the papers you handed me. It had my name on it…"

Aaron had just come in Emily's office and was now leaning against the closed door, looking at her intensely, waiting for any kind of reaction to his comment. She raised her head, biting her lower lip. She looked anxious and sweat was starting to appear on her temple. She wasn't sure what to say, so she just kept quiet. Aaron walked closer to her desk and put the list on it, proving Emily that she had been stupid enough to let that slip past her hands.

"Care to explain?" he asked.

He was towering over her, his hands on her desk. She raised her head to look at him. She thought he would be furious, but he looked more curious than anything else. Her heart was beating fast, her brain was frantically trying to find something, anything to say to Aaron. She didn't know how she would escape that, but she knew that she just really couldn't tell him the truth, even if that's what she wanted the most.

"I… huh… Kirkman asked me to go over a list of people working in the previous administration. He wants to talk to all of them, cause he feels that they are defiant toward him… And he gets it, cause they were working with Richmond bef…" she answered, robotically.

"Em, cut the crap. I can see that you're lying." Aaron cut her, frowning.

She jumped a bit, surprised with his language. It was the first time that she could hear him say something like that.

"But…" she stammered.

He shook his head no, preventing her from saying anything more, and sat on the chair opposite her, crossing his arms and waiting for the truth. He could definitely tell she was embarrassed and didn't know how to handle it.

"Emily, you know I am the Chief of Staff, there isn't anything that doesn't land on my desk. This definitely didn't. So I need an explanation." He said, his voice serious.

She felt like a child caught doing something stupid and lying about it. She kept quiet again, she could feel herself tearing up. Her heart couldn't beat faster, she was digging her nails in her own palms, anxious with the conversation. She had kissed Aaron the night before and she had loved it, even accepting to got out with him tonight. But now, she was investigating him. She didn't even believe he was the traitor in the White House but Kirkman had told her to keep it for herself. Aaron saw the sudden change in her behavior and softened his look. He reached across the desk for her hand and took it in his, making her suddenly cry.

"Emily…" he called, his voice low.

"Please, talk to Kirkman. He'll tell you everything… I can't, it's not that I don't want, it's just that I can't." she said, sniffing.

Aaron understood well what it meant. It meant that the President had told her not to talk about it. He couldn't really get why, because he had the highest security clearance level possible, but something had happened and he needed to talk to Kirkman about it. He nodded and rose from his seat, heading out, but before he could open the door, Emily spoke again.

"Aaron… I don't regret anything… about last night" she said in a whisper.

He nodded, a small smile on his face, and left her office. She thought he would come back after having talked to Kirkman. But with the hours passing, and the evening coming, it appeared clearer that he wouldn't. She started to worry, she started to wonder what had happened, if Kirkman had actually told the truth. By 8 p.m., she was desperate and walked toward the cafeteria to get something to eat. She had not stopped trying to clear Aaron's name from the whole afternoon, she was exhausted, but she had decided she wouldn't leave the West Wing before she could do it.

After a detour by the bathroom, she ended up walking past Aaron's office, realizing the door was half-open and the light was still on. She walked in, standing at the threshold of his office to look at him. The dim light was emphasizing the frowns on his forehead, she couldn't help but find him more handsome than ever. He was deep in his reading, and obviously annoyed by something. She knocked softly and cleared her throat, making her presence obvious.

"Hey…" she said as he raised his head. "Thought you'd gone home long ago. Didn't hear about you since…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I just needed to be alone" he answered.

"Oh…" she murmured disappointed, already turning around to walk away.

"No, wait!" he exclaimed.

Emily stopped in her steps and turned back toward him. She waited for a word from him, or a move, or something. She didn't know if he had seen Kirkman, didn't know if he knew anything.

"I managed to talk to Kirkman…" he finally announced. "He told me… everything I guess."

She didn't show any expression, she didn't talk. She felt relieved but she still wasn't sure what the President had told him.

"You're… okay?" she asked, hesitant, after a long silence.

"As good as you can be when you learn that your President think you're a traitor and that he asked his most trusted advisor to investigate you…"

Aaron took a sip from the glass he was holding, and that's when Emily realized he had been nursing his scotch all evening long.

"I'm sorry…" she said, ashamed.

"About what? You're just doing what you were asked to do. I just hope you don't think I'm the traitor…"

"What? No!" she exclaimed. "How could I even think that? Aaron…"

She had walked toward him during their talk and was now sitting on the edge of his desk.

"I've spend the afternoon and the evening trying to clear your name…" she admitted.

"Funny" Aaron chuckled. "I've been doing the same… Well, clearing MY name…" he emphasized.

Aaron's comment drew a smile on Emily's face and she brought her hand closer to his. With her thumb, she started stroking the back of his hand.

"I don't want to go home before I've managed to clear your name…" she announced "But to be honest, I'd like some sleep too. Wanna help me? So we can both go home before dawn."

Aaron nodded. Emily stood from the seat she had taken on his desk, and, extending her hand toward him, invited him to follow in her own office.

"Come on, we need to clear your name" she said.

Her last sentence didn't need any answer, so he just smiled and took the few things he had managed to gather in the few hours he had worked on his case. Emily had already sat on the couch in her office when he arrived, and he was surprised to see how comfortable she seemed, her shoes off, sitting cross-legged, her jacket off and a blanket on her lap. She tapped on the couch, inviting him to seat next to her, and she started showing him everything she had found. They fell into a comfortable silence reading papers, and occasionally talking to try and guess what had happened. At one point, he went back to his office to grab the bottle of scotch and two glasses, and poured some for Emily and him. Small talk was made, even sometimes laughing despite the circumstances, and it felt good for both of them. Emily was relieved, it seemed that Aaron didn't feel any resentment toward her and the fact that she had hidden this from him. As for Aaron, the atmosphere could almost make him forget they were investigating him, his own case. Midnight passed, and Emily yawned, exhausted by the emotional day that she had been going through. By 1 a.m., she stretched her legs and arms, and by 2 a.m., she ended up falling asleep, her head falling on Aaron's shoulder. A little surprised at first, Aaron smiled and made himself comfortable on the couch, tugging on her blanket to get a part of it and continuing to work without daring to wake up Emily. His feet on the coffee table, the computer on his lap and papers on the couch next to him, he continued to trace everything back to the day when the call had been made. The hardest was to remember what he had done on that day. His job was demanding back then, and with everything that had happened since, there were things he tended to forget. How could he remember what he had done in June 2015? Why was Charles Langdon gone that day? Was Aaron really the one who had made that call? Everything was blurry in his mind, he just knew that he had never seen such a file and couldn't get why someone would set him up like that. He was exhausted, his head was heavy and he couldn't keep his eyes open. Emily's slow and steady breathing just next to him wasn't really helping either, and he ended up falling asleep too, his head falling gently on hers.

It's a knock on Emily's door that woke them both up with a start a few hours later. Out of habit, Emily told the person in the hallway to come in without even realizing how awkward the situation was. Sitting up and combing her hair with her hand, she realized that they had both fallen asleep on her couch.

"Well, well. You're lucky it's only me… Look at that." Seth said, entering the room and mocking them both.

"Shut up…" Aaron answered with a withering look, his voice hoarse and not in the mood.

"You know it's 7 a.m. right? Did you seriously stay here all night?" the Press Secretary asked.

"Fell asleep working on a file…" Emily answered, trying to wake up.

"Could have asked if you needed some help, I would have pulled an all-nighter with you guys…" Seth told them.

"Yeah, no. You should probably not know about that…" Aaron groaned, realizing they still had not cleared his name.

"The secrecy in this building…" Seth joked, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, Emily. I wanted you to go over this before I hand it to the press. But take your time, it's fine. You should probably both go home and change, and take a shower… Separately if I may add…"

"Go fish…" "We're not together…" Emily and Aaron answered simultaneously, making Seth laugh.

Seth left Emily's office, leaving the two embarrassed by the situation and the talk they had just had with him.

"So…" Aaron started.

"Yeah. We still haven't cleared your name…" Emily continued.

"You believe me though, don't you?" he asked, worried she might have changed her mind in her sleep.

"Of course I do!" she exclaimed, faster than she expected.

"Maybe we should take Seth's advice… Don't you think?"

A look at how creased her blouse and her skirt were made her nod to Aaron.

"Yeah. Meet back here in an hour? So we can get over with this."

"That's fine by me. I'll bring coffee and breakfast over." He announced.

He stood up from the couch, stretching and realizing how sore his muscles were after a night sitting there. His curls were a mess, his white shirt creased, his tie off and a couple of buttons undone. He needed to get out of this building before people would think he was doing a walk of shame in the hallways of the West Wing. It was definitely the last thing he needed right now, especially since he was in Emily's office, with her, and had spent the night there.

"Ok, I'm going out before anyone sees me. See you later." He told her.

As planned, an hour later they were both back in the West Wing, eating breakfast in Aaron's office when his personal phone rang. Emily knew it wasn't his professional phone, she couldn't recognize the ringtone, and she offered to step out for a bit, but instead of taking the call, he realized something.

"Emily! I know!" he exclaimed. "Langdon used to text me stuff on my personal phone. It wasn't allowed, but he used to do it anyway."

"You think he texted you to make that call?" Emily asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, or maybe called me. Especially since he apparently was on an overseas trip with Richmond."

"Can we? Trace that back?"

"I'm sure we can. At least on my phone, I never delete anything. I don't even use it that much…"

Emily chuckled. Their work was so demanding that she could definitely understand what he meant. She didn't have the time to use her personal phone. It would even take her days to answer a text from her best friend or her mother.

"Look, I have texts from two years ago here. So I definitely have the ones from last year…"

"Okay, so… do you have a text from Langdon on June 23rd 2015?" she asked as he was scrolling down his phone.

"Yeah, look… I even had a couple."

"What do they say?" she asked.

"The first one says "Call DOD ASAP." and the second one to ask me if I actually did it"

"So that's it. You called the Secretary of Defense because he asked you to."

"Yup… And look, I had a call from Langdon an hour before. Probably to ask me to retrieve the file…"

"You don't remember this?" Emily asked.

"I honestly don't. But Langdon used to ask me so many things, I've forgotten a lot of them. And retrieving a file electronically isn't something that unusual.

"That I can totally get, I don't even remember what I've asked myself to do…" she said, making Aaron laugh.

A silence fell in the office, but a smile was appearing on both their faces. This investigation had put a hold on their developing relation, they had even missed that Elvis impersonator thing they were supposed to go to the previous evening, but now they could press play again. Sitting next to each other, they couldn't take their eyes off of each other.

"We made it, Aaron. We cleared you" she murmured.

"Is it going to be enough, though?" he asked.

She could see the worry in his eyes and took his hand in hers.

"I'm sure it is. We'll go to Kirkman, show him everything. He's probably going to ask Mike to make a copy of your phone, I don't know, something like that, but I'm sure it's enough."

Aaron nodded, reassured by her words. He couldn't help but grin. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"We should celebrate after work" she said.

"We missed the Elvis impersonator though…" he sighed.

"We'll go another day, it's fine. Drinks, tonight?" she asked.

Emily wasn't the one to usually ask for a date, but the sudden relief that he wasn't actually the traitor was making her bolder than ever.

"Definitely."


End file.
